Invalides in 1840 and his coffin was opened, it was found to be perfectly
preserved. Since this outcome is yet another consequence of arsenic
poisoning, and other attempts to explain the phenomenon simply result
in absurdity (vacuum sealing in an era that did not possess the
technology), the theorists of cancer have yet another mountain to climb.
In the words of Conan Doyle, 'when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'.
Yet there is nothing improbable about the hypothesis of arsenic
poisoning. Not only does it fit all Napoleon's symptoms, but science gives
it rather more than warranted assertibility. Hairs from Napoleon's head,
preserved by the valets Marchand and Noverraz and with an impeccable
provenance and pedigree, have been tested fo r arsenic content and found
to be abnormally high in the substance. Napoleon was found to have
between 10.38 and 10.58 parts of arsenic per million in two hair samples,
whereas in the early nineteenth century - an era of low pollution - the
normal level would be between o.s and o.6s; even today, in a world of
high pollution, the norm is only o.86. Neutron irradiation tests conducted
at Harwell Research Centre showed that the Emperor had ingested 6oo%
of the levels of arsenic normal in the early nineteenth century.
One possible explanation was that Napoleon died of accidental arsenic
poisoning, having taken in lethal amounts from his wallpaper or from hair
creams or medications he took to improve his appetite. In that case,
scientific tests would show that there was a regular ingestion of arsenic.
The breakthrough came in 1975 when the Department of Forensic
Medicine at Glasgow worked out a technique for dating the various doses
of arsenic ingested. It was shown that the Emperor had taken in toxic
doses of arsenic on fo rty different occasions and the periodicity of the
doses correlated uncannily with the irregular pattern of his illnesses
during 1816-21 - an irregularity which alone should have disposed of the
cancer theory.
If Napoleon was the victim of arsenic poisoning, and if the poisoning
was not accidental, the conclusion was obvious: he was the victim of
assassination by person or persons unknown. Only one person had means
and opportunity to preside over a slow poisoning and only one person
was always present during all the acute troughs of Napoleon's periodic
illness: the comte de Montholon. The motive is more elusive. The
Montholons were unscrupulous adventurers and they may have been
actuated by simple mercenary considerations: it is known that in April
1821 Montholon got the Emperor to destroy an earlier will in which he
gave the bulk of his money to Bertrand. This he did by successfully
hinting that the Bertrands intended to decamp to Europe and abandon
marcin
(Marcin)
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